The Importance of Structure in Novel Writing – Paula Hawkins QUOTES FOR WRITERS
A strong structure is invaluable to a writer: it will help you through your story; you will start to know what needs to come next, what to reveal next, because it will fit into the framework you’ve been building. It becomes your guide, too. There’s no handbook for this, no template. Every novel is different, and each has its own requirements…
…I think it’s rarely possible to visualize the shape of your novel at its outset. But whether you are a writer who plots out each chapter in detail, the sort who starts out with no idea whatsoever where they are going, or you’re somewhere in between, the likelihood is that at some point during the process (for me it’s generally around half way to two-thirds through) you will have to draw up some sort of schematic to help with that visualization.
Paula Hawkins
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8 comments on “The Importance of Structure in Novel Writing – Paula Hawkins QUOTES FOR WRITERS”
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Agree.
But are you a half way plotter or the do you set out with a clear plan?
I work in an odd sort of way; I have a plot outline in my head, and write one or two chapters to meet my characters. Then I plot in detail with a sentence or two about what will happen in each of the next 10 chapters in more detail to the broad outline, and then add more chapters as I complete the detailed ones. It makes for faster writing to have them planned out, but I need to meet the proptagonists first. Of course for a mystery there’s about 6 handwritten pages of detailed notes, including timing, alibis, motives, random happenings and so on before even starting.
a mystery has to be written backwards, as you might say – or at least planned backwards. Having decided that it was Colronel Mustard in the library with a piece of lead pipe, working back to who and why he is bonking them on the head, where the piece of lead pipe came from, did anyone see it before he extracted it and then other characters and their red herrings need to be added. I still sometimes write a chapter to meet the suspects first as I generally like my murders to happen several chapters in so the cast in entirety is presented including the victim, though there is much to be said, too, for getting to know the victim through the perceptions of others.
but occasionally characters won’t comply – I got halfway through a tightly planned murder – attempted murder, anyway- and my villain refused to co-operate. He was too pathetic to be a murderer and I had to re plan and rewrite swathes to have a total change of motive. Nobody’s noticed though!
I have been half-way through a murder and the murderer I projected was most insistent that it wasn’t him. He was too pathetic to carry on so I had to do a total rewrite with a new murderer. Characters can be so inconvenient when they won’t co-operate. so loads of timings struck out, re-devised, rewrites of swathes, re-planning….
Thank you sharing for all this – a fascinating insight into the way you work. I love your description of characters refusing to conform.
I used to think I was weird, that my characters had their own ideas, but I’ve heard it from other writers, so I go with the flow; and if it means discarding a couple of thousand words of careful notes and setting out in a new direction, I have never regretted doing so, and always regretted the stilted nonsense which comes out of mouths who want their own words and act like mutinous six-year-olds forced to be an angel when they wanted to be a shepherd in the end of term Christmas play. [yes, I’ve known a few.] I’ve had characters write themselves in as well, where a walk-on extra suddenly becomes a main character. Or even appears out of nowhere. I like a tight structure of planning, but to take the simile of the illustration you used, sometimes you have to move the scaffolding or add an extension. and even, fortunately not too often, take it all down and start again.